I have been a Gentoo tenant for 26 years and despite always paying my rent have found their attitude towards their tenants absolutely disgusting. We live in a house with recurring mould, badly fitted windows and doors with cracks appearing regularly.

We are told the mould is our fault due to 'drying washing on the radiators' despite having mould in rooms we do not do this in, our health since moving into this property 20 years ago has steadily declined with breathing problems and we are simply told to open our windows.

Like all of us we are struggling to pay extortionate heating and electricity bills, we are left with the choice of either having mould ruining our health or having sky high energy bills ruining our mental health.

We are tired of having 'bodged' repairs effected by what appear to be unqualified workmen, being blamed for damage they have done and being treated with nothing more than contempt.

 We are tired of Gentoo group siphoning off our rent money for their own private projects and criminally high executive salaries, leaving us in uninhabitable properties. Then printing propaganda which claims they are a company who care.

We have had problems with a nightmare neighbour who Gentoo group appear to be simply be assisting and have taken no positive action against him despite being supplied with reams of evidence against him over the years and we know there are a lot of you in the same position as we are. 

We refuse to live like this while a greedy vile company like this pretend to be 'a charity' but do nothing to modify their housing and are happy to leave their tenants to suffer because of this.

When Gentoo group 'acquired' these properties in 2001 they made all sorts of promises to improve the housing stock and they have been found wanting in all of these areas, they have simply acquired land to built private homes on and ignored us.

This is your chance to fight back and show the corporations like Gentoo group that they cannot treat us this way, that we will not 'go quietly into the night' and allow our health whether mental or physical to be damaged by these people and that we know we should be treated with the due respect we deserve.

Despite this being 2023 we still live like people 100 years ago, struggling to make ends meet with constant bullying by Gentoo group to 'pay our rent on time or be evicted' while they do whatever they please. It is grossly unfair to treat us this way with little to no regard for our wellbeing.

We may only be the 'little people' but when we stand together we are HUGE and we want you to stand with us in this fight against the oppressive actions of this company, which we may say ourselves and all the other tenants we contacted voted AGAINST taking over this housing stock as we saw through their lies and propaganda.

This petition is to have this housing stock removed from Gentoo group and placed back into the care of Sunderland City Council, or preferably to be sold to a responsible organisation who will invest the money badly needed to greatly improve or in some cases demolish and rebuild our social housing to a standard fitting for the 21st century

This is your chance to shape not only your own future but that of your children and your children's children. To show that we will be unstoppable together and that we WILL win.

 

Thank you